February 24, 2010

In today’s cultural climate, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to talk about complex things in the mainstream media without being reduced to a caricature or a talking point. This is one of the things that makes The Daily Show so extraordinary—it walks the line between laughter and learning in a really fascinating way, often using irony, snark, and cynicism as a “trojan horse” for authenticity.

Warren Farrell was recently featured on a controversial segment of The Daily Show, in which he, the very notion of male inequality, and “men’s work” as a whole were hilariously lampooned by Daily Show correspondent Samantha Bee (watch the full five-minute clip on the right). This clip has caused a bit of a stir in many online communities, drawing fire from almost every conceivable angle, from “why does The Daily Show hate men?” all the way to “when will men just stop whining and learn how to man up?”

Instant Insight

Warren knew from the beginning that The Daily Show was going to lampoon his work and “men’s issues” in general, but did it anyway with good humor and humility.

What makes us learn is very often the opposite of what makes us laugh. The Daily Show frequently tries to do both.

A total of four hours of interview footage was shot with Warren, only about 60 seconds of which made it into the final clip.

When we say “men don’t have as many options as women in today’s world” we are not just talking about economic or political realities, but the interior dimensions of family, emotional availability, and the pursuit of genuine happiness.

Samantha Bee was not just satirizing men in this clip, but also women, by playing the role of an “unevolved” or “unliberated” woman looking for a stereotypically macho, beer-swilling guy.

In today’s American pop culture climate, white men are the last group we are allowed to make fun of.

Tracking men’s progress in the private sphere is somewhat different than tracking women’s progress in the public sphere, because it is much more difficult to quantify interiors and “quality of life” indicators.

Warren was kind enough to share with us his own reaction to the sendup, the first public response he has offered since the clip aired nearly three weeks ago.

What follows is an intriguing and highly entertaining discussion about what it was like to be interviewed by The Daily Show, the many levels of humor at play in the clip, and a clarification of many of the points that ended up being turned into punchlines. Furthermore, Warren reminds us how important it is to live our lives adventurously and to be able to laugh at ourselves at all times—even when we see ourselves being skewered on national television.

At its best moments, The Daily Show fully lives up to, and even adds to, the rich legacy of satire that Jon Stewart’s desk rests upon. We look to comedians to see what others might not see, to say what others cannot say, to hold a funhouse mirror up to reality—reflecting the truth by distorting the facts, releasing us from the absurdity of existence into the tonic bliss of laughter. Which is really the only sane response to being human, isn’t it?

Considering the controversy and even outrage this clip provoked throughout many online “men’s group” communities, this might be the most important lesson of them all: hold everything lightly; especially the stuff you take most seriously.

So sit back, watch this clip, and just let yourself laugh for a few minutes. When you are finished, take a listen to Warren’s response below for a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes, behind the controversy, and beyond the laughter.

February 24, 2010

Come on, let’s say it together: “Men are being oppressed.” It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it? It sort of sticks in the back of the throat, and we almost need to look around to make sure no one is listening before we say it out loud. In today’s academic and cultural climate, it’s not easy to make a point like this—the kindest reaction you might receive is a cynical eye-roll.

But really, why is it so difficult to admit that men could use a little help learning how to redefine themselves in today’s world, and how to “man up” in a new way to meet the challenges of our modern lives? Maybe it’s because our definitions for words like “oppression” and “power” are too limited, restricting our understanding of these dynamics to just a tiny shred of what’s actually going on beneath the surface of male/female relations. Just as our notions of “oppression” have often led us to perceive women as perennial victims, robbing them of a dignity they had never really been without, so do our notions of “power” keep our attention diverted from the very real issues men are dealing with today.

Instant Insights:

“Power” is not defined by the amount of control someone has over others, but the amount of control one has over his or her own life.

Feminism can be defined as freeing females from being coerced into traditional female roles, and the same work needs to be done by men.

Feminism did a great job of exploring issues of male power and female powerlessness, but not a great job at exploring issues of female power and male powerlessness.

In terms of recognizing and developing their power, men are in a similar position today as women were in the late 1950’s, at the dawn of the feminist movement.

As long as men do not rise to the challenge of redefining themselves for today’s world, women continue to be pressured to learn how to “row on both sides of the boat,” while men keep to their own side. The result? The boat just keeps going around in circles….

In order to succeed, men need to learn from the feminist movements of recent decades, and use their work as a jumping-off point—and not to hold feminism or women’s studies as an opposition to men’s liberation.

In order to take a truly comprehensive view of sex and gender, we need to look through at least four lenses: subjective/psychological (e.g. masculine vs. feminine), objective/biological (e.g. male vs. female), intersubjective/cultural (e.g. gender roles and definitions of “man” and “woman”), and interobjective/social (e.g. the techno-economic realities of the time).

“But men do have more power,” you might say, “just look at who is running the world!” A fair argument in some circles, but somewhat disingenuous when we take a closer look. For one, the amount of power men yield in economic and political spheres has very little impact upon the average guy in the street. And while it is certainly true that throughout history men have largely dominated the “public sphere”, it should be noted that the ratio of women in the workforce and the overall income gap between men and women is rapidly approaching some degree of balance.

But more than anything, this critique of men’s power (and powerlessness) is completely missing the mark—because power is not defined by the amount of control a person has over other people, but the amount of control one has over his or her own life. In this sense, women’s power is too often overlooked, while men have yet to fully come to terms with their own power, as they are still being primed from birth to equate “manhood” with “disposability.”

Men are constantly being locked into a single option—to excel in the “public sphere”, even to the point of breaking their own backs—with very little understanding or training around the “private sphere” options available to him. Meanwhile, men continue to place an unfair amount of cultural pressure upon women to pick up the slack in both spheres, without doing their own work to spend more time with the family, to develop their own emotional availability, to become a more involved father, and to focus on the interior realities of the home life.

We are looking for new role models, new behaviors, and new ways for men to define themselves. We are looking for a path beyond the merely macho, beyond the feminized 90’s guy, and beyond the disposable hero. The goal is not to neuter men or to neutralize the sexes—quite the contrary, we are trying to find a radically improved masculinity, as well as a radically improved femininity, honoring the very real power yielded by males and females alike in both public and private spheres. We are now discovering a new generation of men and women—newly integrated men and women who can see beyond the narrow definitions of gender that have been handed to us, fluent in both interior and exterior realities, and finding new ways for both sexes and both genders to show their love for themselves and one another.

February 24, 2010

With this simple question, Lama Surya Das cuts directly to the heart of the integral spiritual impulse, hinting at a secret that lies at the center of all the world’s spiritual traditions. It is a secret that has been hiding in plain sight for thousands of years; a secret that you yearn to discover for yourself. You know that the world’s religious legacies represent so much more than mere codes of conduct, moral platitudes, or anthologies of myth and superstition. At the core of every major religion we can find a treasure trove of powerful technologies for awakening, transformative practices designed to invoke in us the very same experience of fullness, transcendence, and immeasurable love as the great religious founders themselves were able to have.

That’s right—you can have the same experience that the Buddha had. You can have the same experience that Jesus Christ had. Or that Muhammad had, or St. Teresa, or Rumi, or any other great mystic in history. All this is abundantly available to you, at this very moment.

Why is this important? Simple: it’s your birthright. It’s why you are here, suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous incarnation. This is not an invitation, nor is it an obligation—it’s who you already are, right now. All that’s left to do is to wake up. But first, you need to know that you can wake up in this lifetime, that enlightenment is a real possibility for you and for your loved ones. Second, you need to give yourself permission to pursue your own enlightenment. You deserve to be awake—because in a certain sense, you already are.

This realization forms the bedrock of the 5-year Integral Spiritual Experience event, which is rapidly becoming something like “the United Nations of world spirituality.” It is a space where teachers and leaders from any religious tradition can share their own insights, teachings, and practices with a wide community of spiritual seekers and practitioners in a truly “trans-lineage” embrace—recognizing the timeless core shared by all religions, while celebrating the vast differences between them. After all, each religion may represent a different path up the same mountain, but each path continues to offer its own unique vantage of our shared spiritual heritage.

We recently held our first annual Integral Spiritual Experience event in Asilomar, CA over the 2009-2010 New Year, and were deeply honored to have Lama Surya Das as one of our featured keynote speakers. An exemplary teacher of Dzogchen Buddhism, Lama Surya delivered his presentation with diamond-tipped clarity, precision, and wit. He suggests a few ways we can carry this realization for ourselves through our day-to-day lives, while reminding us how simple it all really is: the most sublimely ordinary experience you will ever know.

Be sure to stay tuned in the coming months for more ISE keynotes (including presentations by Jean Houston, Sally Kempton, and Marc Gafni) as well as some exciting updates around our next Integral Spiritual Experience event: The Future of Love!

February 24, 2010

Come on, let’s say it together: “Men are being oppressed.” It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it? It sort of sticks in the back of the throat, and we almost need to look around to make sure no one is listening before we say it out loud. In today’s academic and cultural climate, it’s not easy to make a point like this—the kindest reaction you might receive is a cynical eye-roll.

But really, why is it so difficult to admit that men could use a little help learning how to redefine themselves in today’s world, and how to “man up” in a new way to meet the challenges of our modern lives? Maybe it’s because our definitions for words like “oppression” and “power” are too limited, restricting our understanding of these dynamics to just a tiny shred of what’s actually going on beneath the surface of male/female relations. Just as our notions of “oppression” have often led us to perceive women as perennial victims, robbing them of a dignity they had never really been without, so do our notions of “power” keep our attention diverted from the very real issues men are dealing with today.

Instant Insights:

“Power” is not defined by the amount of control someone has over others, but the amount of control one has over his or her own life.

Feminism can be defined as freeing females from being coerced into traditional female roles, and the same work needs to be done by men.

Feminism did a great job of exploring issues of male power and female powerlessness, but not a great job at exploring issues of female power and male powerlessness.

In terms of recognizing and developing their power, men are in a similar position today as women were in the late 1950’s, at the dawn of the feminist movement.

As long as men do not rise to the challenge of redefining themselves for today’s world, women continue to be pressured to learn how to “row on both sides of the boat,” while men keep to their own side. The result? The boat just keeps going around in circles….

In order to succeed, men need to learn from the feminist movements of recent decades, and use their work as a jumping-off point—and not to hold feminism or women’s studies as an opposition to men’s liberation.

In order to take a truly comprehensive view of sex and gender, we need to look through at least four lenses: subjective/psychological (e.g. masculine vs. feminine), objective/biological (e.g. male vs. female), intersubjective/cultural (e.g. gender roles and definitions of “man” and “woman”), and interobjective/social (e.g. the techno-economic realities of the time).

“But men do have more power,” you might say, “just look at who is running the world!” A fair argument in some circles, but somewhat disingenuous when we take a closer look. For one, the amount of power men yield in economic and political spheres has very little impact upon the average guy in the street. And while it is certainly true that throughout history men have largely dominated the “public sphere”, it should be noted that the ratio of women in the workforce and the overall income gap between men and women is rapidly approaching some degree of balance.

But more than anything, this critique of men’s power (and powerlessness) is completely missing the mark—because power is not defined by the amount of control a person has over other people, but the amount of control one has over his or her own life. In this sense, women’s power is too often overlooked, while men have yet to fully come to terms with their own power, as they are still being primed from birth to equate “manhood” with “disposability.”

Men are constantly being locked into a single option—to excel in the “public sphere”, even to the point of breaking their own backs—with very little understanding or training around the “private sphere” options available to him. Meanwhile, men continue to place an unfair amount of cultural pressure upon women to pick up the slack in both spheres, without doing their own work to spend more time with the family, to develop their own emotional availability, to become a more involved father, and to focus on the interior realities of the home life.

We are looking for new role models, new behaviors, and new ways for men to define themselves. We are looking for a path beyond the merely macho, beyond the feminized 90’s guy, and beyond the disposable hero. The goal is not to neuter men or to neutralize the sexes—quite the contrary, we are trying to find a radically improved masculinity, as well as a radically improved femininity, honoring the very real power yielded by males and females alike in both public and private spheres. We are now discovering a new generation of men and women—newly integrated men and women who can see beyond the narrow definitions of gender that have been handed to us, fluent in both interior and exterior realities, and finding new ways for both sexes and both genders to show their love for themselves and one another.

February 10, 2010

Why is art so important? As Ken discusses in this clip, art and creativity represent an intrinsic dimension of human consciousness itself, and developing our aesthetic sensibilities is just as crucial as our moral maturity or expanding our scientific knowledge of the world. As such, artists play a very special role in our lives as interpreters of this present moment, preservers of our shared past, and arbiters of tomorrow’s unfolding. Historically it has often been the artists who have pushed our cultural edge forward the most profoundly, simply because they have a certain freedom of experimentation that most people in other vocations simply do not have. As the leading edge of the world’s development is now Integral, we can begin to look to artists whose consciousness is integrally informed to offer us glimpses of a more sane and inclusive future, and help unearth the radical potentials that await us there….

February 10, 2010

Avante garde—synonymous with “vanguard”—represents people at the cutting edge of any emergent cultural thought or expression. These individuals tend to function several steps ahead of the rest of the world, scouting the newly emerging territories of tomorrow and forging pathways toward the artistic, cultural, and intellectual possibilities that dwell there.

Integral Life is pleased to present a monthly showcase of truly avant garde artists—the most current embodiment of the Kosmic impulse to constantly go beyond what went before, adding brilliance and revelation to the dying forms of the previous moment.

February 3, 2010

Last year was a pretty incredible year for Integral Life. Since launching the website in late 2008, we’ve published a staggering amount of new content around almost every conceivable topic: spirituality, politics, art, business, sexuality, personal growth, etc. With such rich diversity of subject matter, it can be easy to feel lost in a sea of integral media—something we would like to help you with. So we decided to compile some data, crunch some numbers, and squeeze the results through our own patented perspectival algorithms, and are now happy to present you with your own selections for the Best Media of 2009. Enjoy!